This invention relates to a valve for an aerosol container with the aid of which a quantity of the contents thereof can be dispensed. The invention has particular application to the dispensing of metered doses of medicaments, though it is applicable to the dispensing of aerosols generally.
In dispensing a solid in aerosol form it is common to use what is known as a suspension aerosol. This involves the use of a liquid propellant in which a solid to be dispensed is suspended. There is inevitably some difference, however slight, between the respective specific gravities of the propellant and the solid to be dispensed, which means that, with the passage of time and in the absence of other overriding interactions, the two components tend to separate in the container, with a lighter component going to the top or a heavier component going to the bottom over time.
In some pharmaceutical aerosols the particles of medicament are more dense than the propellant and hence the particles tend to sediment out to the bottom of the container. This phenomenon may be accentuated by the additional structuring of the medicament presentation necessary to enhance its physical stability, for example by controlled flocculation thereof. Controlled flocculation of the suspension may increase the effective particle size in dispersion from less than 10 μm to greater than 100 μm. A squared dependency on particle radius will directly increase the sedimentation rate in such circumstances.
Users of suspension aerosols are always instructed before use to shake the container well. However, even a short interval between the conclusion of the shaking and the act of dispensing a charge from the aerosol is sufficient to allow some sedimentation to occur. This represents a particular problem where the suspended material is a medicament, since it can result in the patient receiving a dose which, although of the correct volume, contains either too little or too much of the medicament.
This problem has been found to be particularly acute in the development of CFC-free aerosol formulations using propellant 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane, also known as HFA134a, which is less dense than conventional CFC containing propellants. With some aerosol drug formulations using this propellant, when the container is orientated with the valve at the bottom, the drug particles rapidly sediment onto and around the valve, and with vibration caused by, for example, transportation, find their way into the valve body. The trapped drug is then not fully dispensed, even on shaking due to the confinement of the valve body, and on discharge of valve actuation the trapped drug enters the metering chamber which leads to a high drug content in the dose delivered by the following actuation. This problem is especially pronounced where the drug is fluticasone propionate.
UK Patent No. 2195986 describes an aerosol valve wherein the pick-up point, i.e. the point at which liquid passes from the interior of the container into the sampling chamber of the valve, is at a location which, when the container is orientated with the valve at the bottom, is spaced an appreciable vertical distance from the nearest substantially horizontal surface. Whilst this valve ensures that the liquid entering the metering chamber following a dispensing operation comes from above the nearest region where sedimented drug particles might gather, any sedimenting drug particles that might be drawn into the sampling chamber together with any drug particles that sediment out of the suspension within the sampling chamber tend to be trapped and are not dispensed on shaking. Furthermore, by deliberately placing the pick-up point appreciably higher than the lowest point in the container, a significant quantity of the contents of the container cannot be dispensed, which results in considerable wastage.